The Earth Dwellers

by David Estes

  I grab it and smash it on the ground, scattering chips of glass around my feet. I extract the photo, stare at it for a second, and then tear it about a quarter of the way from the left. Setting down the larger piece on a table, I stare at the small strip in my hands. My father’s angry, bored eyes look back at me.

  “Bastard,” I say, and then rip it once, twice, and again and again until the stack of paper’s too thick for me to shred with my bare hands. A strange energy running through me, I toss the pieces in the air, letting them fall like rain around my shoulders, all the way to the floor, where they mingle with the broken glass.

  I leave my father in pieces on the floor, taking the rest of my dead family with me to my bedroom, where I set the picture reverently on the table beside the bed.

  As the wall clock flips over to four in the morning, I pull back the covers and crawl in, fully clothed, hoping to catch a few hours’ sleep before day three really begins.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Adele

  I take her hand, which is cold and clammy. Even as she pulls me through the window, I can’t stop staring at her, the dead woman before me. I can’t reconcile what I’m seeing with President Nailin’s words ringing in my ears, mocking Tristan even as he destroyed every last bit of childish hope he had left: I killed her with my bare hands! And I loved watching the life drain out of her face; loved kissing her lips as I held her down and she took her last breath; loved feeling her body go cold as we lay in bed together one last time.

  It never happened. He lied about Tristan’s mom. Not dead. Not murdered. Here, in the New City, in…Lecter’s house? But why?

  Even as she closes the window behind us, I whirl on her, anger bright in my eyes. “What are you doing here?” I accuse.

  “Adele, it’s not what you—”

  I’m not listening to excuses, to more lies. “He thinks you’re dead, you know? It crushed him, destroyed him, broke him. Even after your...husband”—I spit out the word—“was dead, he grieved for you.”

  There’s genuine shock on her face. “Edward’s dead?” she says.

  “Sorry to break it to you,” I say, still feeling flushed.

  “Thank God,” she says. I look around the room, trying to distract my anger. There’s no time for this, no time for voices from the dead, no time for a woman who abandoned her children to the whims of an evil man.

  Like everywhere else, the room is small and bland. But it does have a real bed, decent size, too, taking up most of the space. There’s a pillow on the floor beside it, along with a blanket. Were those thrown there in haste when she heard the gunshots, or was she sleeping on the floor?

  “Adele,” Jocelyn says, cutting off my internal question. She’s biting her lip and her eyes are wet, though no tears have fallen.

  I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” I say. “Tristan will be beyond excited that you’re alive. I’m glad you’re alive. But…” I let the thought float away.

  “But you think it’s pretty screwed up that I’ve gone from one dictator’s bed to another’s?” she asks, a tear finally falling.

  I lift a hand to my mouth. She can’t mean…she’s not…she can’t possibly be saying that…

  “It’s not what you think,” she says quickly. “Well, not exactly what you think. I’m a prisoner here. When I ran from my husband, I didn’t know where to go that he wouldn’t look for me. I realized the earth’s surface was the one and only place, so I came above, asked to become a part of the new society, not realizing what Lecter was creating here. I had hoped to return later for Tristan and Killen, but…”

  “They let you in and wouldn’t let you out.” I’m still shocked that she’s standing in front of me. “But you’re here.”

  “Borg was so welcoming,” she says, and I cringe at the way she says his name, like it’s so familiar, that of an old friend…or more. “He helped me get on my feet, showed me around, ate meals with me…” She sits on the bed, but I remain standing.

  There are more shouts outside and I glance at the window. “They won’t look for you here,” she says. “At least not right away. Here I might as well be dead, and sometimes I wish it.”

  “Don’t say that,” I say, for Tristan’s sake, although I’m still mildly disturbed by the gentle way she had recounted her memories of Lecter.

  She shrugs, as if talk of suicide is a part of her daily life. “I started asking questions when what I was seeing around the city didn’t look right. The people, despite being the first in hundreds of years to live on the earth’s surface, were unhappy. They depended on Borg for everything. He was in complete control.” Her tone changes. Gone is the lightness. “I demanded to know the truth, and you know what? He told me. Every last detail. How he wanted to control everything, to create more cities like this one, to destroy the savages from off the face of the earth. I tried to run, to get away, to go back down to find my children, but his guards grabbed me and brought me here. I’ve been living here ever since.”

  “You’re a prisoner,” I say.

  “Just like everyone else in this twisted city,” she says, pursing her lips, which are now wet with tears. “Borg’s a monster, and I fell for his charms just like I did for Edward’s. I’m a fool.”

  Although I’m still confused and in a semi-state of shock, I can’t watch Tristan’s mother—who is very much alive—crying like that. The woman who brought me and her son together. The woman who loved her son enough to give him a chance at a different life. The one who gave Tristan his only truly happy childhood memories.

  I sit down on the bed, wrap a tentative arm around her, and hold her as she silently weeps.

  Suddenly her body stiffens and her head jerks to look at me. “You can stay here for a while, but not forever,” she says. “They’re looking for you; eventually they’ll find you.”

  I stare at her. “Of course they’re looking for me. I just killed three presidential guards. But they don’t know who I am.”

  “They do,” she says. She reaches over and snatches a controller off a table. It looks like the one in the room I’m staying in. She presses a button and one of the walls brightens. A vid screen.

  “What are you doing?” I ask. Strange time to be watching the news.

  I gasp when the image appears. Because it’s…it’s…

  It’s me.

  ~~~

  Crap, crap, crap. This is not good. Beneath the photo that was taken at the Get Chipped! offices, is my false name, Tawni Sanders, and the words “Armed and Dangerous.” At least they got that part right.

  But how?

  The image changes to a news report. A woman wearing a black dress and bright red lipstick speaks:

  “The two soldiers who had been missing for days have been found. They were tied up in an electrical room in the army medical building. Suffering from severe dehydration and malnourishment, they’re being treated as we speak. However, they have confirmed that the girl you saw on screen a moment earlier is their attacker. The army has not yet speculated on the reasons for her actions, except to say, ‘She’s a seriously disturbed girl.’ President Lecter himself has urged all citizens to assist in the identification and capture of the girl calling herself Tawni Sanders, and a reward will be considered for information leading to her arrest. According to sources close to the investigation, Miss Sanders’ chip was found moments ago in the room that was registered in her name. Somehow she’d managed to extract it and leave the building, suggesting assistance from another citizen.”

  The woman glances to the left, cups a hand to her ear. “What’s that?” she says to someone off-camera. “Okay, okay.” She turns back to face the screen. “This just in. We’ve just received reports of a dead night watchman. There are also rumors of three dead guards at the presidential quarters. Although no official statement has been issued, there are suspicions that the murders are linked to Tawni Sanders. More as this story evolves.”

  The image flashes back to my photo. Crap.

  �
��The story has been looping for a while now,” Jocelyn says, pressing a button that turns the volume off but leaves the video on. “Each time there’s more information.”

  “Crap,” I say aloud.

  “What are you doing here?” Jocelyn asks.

  Does she mean on the surface of the earth, in the New City, or in her room? I’ve got to tell her everything that’s happened, but she’s not off the hook yet.

  “Look, I’ll tell you what you need to know, but first I need some answers.”

  Jocelyn looks shocked. Since I crawled through her window I’ve snapped at her, held her while she cried, and now I’ve come full circle.

  “You’re so much like your mother,” she says. Not what I expected her to say. “What happened to her?”

  “She’s fine,” I say. “She’s a general in the Lower Realms army. When my father died, she led the Resistance.” I feel a swell of pride for the woman who raised me.

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Jocelyn says, and I feel a smile tug at the corners of my lips. “She was always a strong woman.”

  “So are you,” I find myself saying. “You defied your husband, took a chance, did something crazy and unpredictable—we thought you were dead. Nailin told us you were dead.”

  She shakes her head. “I learned very early on in my relationship with Edward that you could never trust any words that passed from his throat through his lips. Even his body language was a lie most of the time.”

  “Tristan has to know; we’ve got to get you out…”

  “Impossible. There’s no leaving once you’re here,” Jocelyn says.

  I feel something under my foot, on the floor. The pillow. The blanket. “Why are you sleeping on the floor?” I ask. The bed feels very comfortable, much better than the tiny beds in Lin and Avery’s building.

  She looks away. “I’m a prisoner,” she says, which doesn’t answer my question at all, and makes even less sense.

  “You’re a prisoner who can open your window? What’s to stop you from climbing down and escaping?” I’m missing something. Something big. What is she not telling me?

  “I—I’ve been slowly getting my privileges back,” she says. I can barely see the tear that slips down her cheek. “Borg, he—when I found out the truth, and I slapped him, and I ran…he stuck me in a cell barely big enough to squeeze into, didn’t feed me for a week. Gave me a squeeze of water from a sponge each day, dribbled it personally into my burning mouth. He—he thought he broke me.”

  My God. “But he didn’t?” I ask, hoping I’m right. Tristan’s mother seems weak, damaged, but not broken. Not yet anyway.

  When she looks back at me, there’s a fire in her eyes I haven’t seen yet. Even with hot tears running down her cheeks she looks angry, strong. “No. I’m pretending. Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, I’m showing him that I’ve changed. And he rewards me. This room. An open window. He knows I can’t escape because of the glass walls and the armed guards at the front. But one day he’ll make a mistake, and then I’ll be gone.”

  Not broken at all. Chipped a little, maybe, but not broken. She still hasn’t answered my question. I motion to the floor.

  She raises a fisted hand to her mouth, bites lightly on her knuckle, closes her eyes. “He makes me do things on this bed,” she says. “The nightmares never end when I try to sleep on it.”

  I’m on my feet in an instant, my entire body tight and full of anger. I want to punch something—no, someone. Lecter. Borg, as this abused woman calls him. I stalk back and forth, staying out of view of the window. Why does she let him do this? If it was me, and he tried to so much as touch me, I’d freaking—

  “I kicked him once,” she says, snapping me out of my internal tirade. I turn to look at her.

  She’s wiping away the tears and nodding. “The first time he tried anything. I was playing along, trying to be congenial, acting like I didn’t find him completely disgusting. He thought that meant I was…interested in him. He touched me, kissed me—and I let him. But then he took it a step further and I resisted. He grabbed me, his arms like iron. Shoved me down. Tried to climb on top of me. I kicked him, as hard as I could, right in his…”

  “Stones?” I say.

  She smiles. “Yes. It was the best feeling in the world, hurting him like that, seeing his face contorted with such pain.”

  It didn’t end there. Surely she paid a price for her resistance. Her makeshift bed on the floor tells me that much. I don’t ask, and she stands and turns away from me, so I think she’s done talking. But then she grabs the sides of her white shirt and pulls it over her head.

  I gasp, tears welling up and blinding the truth written all over her back in long, jagged scars. He beat the life out of her for that one kick.

  When I’ve furiously blinked away the blurriness, she’s got her shirt back on and has once more turned to face me. “I don’t fear him anymore,” she says. “He’s taken everything he can from me. The only thing I fear is never being free of him, being his plaything for the rest of my life.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” I say. “Tristan is outside the Glass City. He’s gathering an army of the natives. If I can find a way to get them inside the city, we will crush Lecter.”

  “My son,” she says, and there’s pure joy in her eyes. Knowing he’s alive, that he’s nearby. The best gift I could possibly give her without delivering her to him. “And Killen?” she says.

  I shake my head. It shouldn’t be me to tell her—it shouldn’t be anyone.

  “Tell me everything,” she says. “Starting with how my husband died.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Siena

  The wounded’ve been bandaged, the dead’ve been buried. Surprisingly few died in the Cotee attack—maybe twenty—but no one avoided getting bitten or scratched. Except Skye, who, according to Feve, killed fifty Cotees herself. He said it was like the sun goddess had entered her body, giving her power and strength beyond her own. I’d say he was exaggerating if he wasn’t talking ’bout Skye.

  Grunt didn’t die. He was one of the runners, turning tail the moment the Cotees came over the hill. I ain’t blaming him—he ain’t no warrior. I’m glad for him having the sense to let the fighters do the fighting. I couldn’t bear to tell Veeva he didn’t make it, ’specially ’fore we even got to the real battle. Hopefully most of our people stick around when it comes time to attack the Glassies.

  We all know we’ve lingered ’ere too long. Nothing’s changed. Tristan told us to attack on the third day. We hafta move.

  Wilde leads us away from the piles of dead Cotees. If any of us survive the day, we’ll come back to collect the meat. Though they tried to kill us, we won’t disrespect ’em by letting their bodies go to waste.

  I’m limping and Circ’s trying to hide his limp. Hopefully a bit of walking will help the pain.

  We head further east, making searin’ sure that we come in from the northeast, where the Glassies’ll least expect it. I’m hoping they’ll think we’re the ghosts of the Icers and drop their weapons and flee before us. If we had some mud paint and scary masks, maybe we could give it a go.

  I’m ’bout to tell Circ my brilliant idea, when Wilde stops, her hand in the air. I crane my neck to see what’s snatched her attention.

  The forest. The huge, huge forest that extends all the way to storm country. And beyond that, to water country. We’ve reached the very eastern edge of fire country. Only one way to go now.

  I grab Circ’s hand and pull him to the front of the column, coming up next to Wilde and Skye. “So we head south now?” I ask.

  “I thought I saw something,” Wilde says absently.

  “What kinda something?” I say.

  She shakes her head. “Nothing. It was probably nothing.”

  “’Cause if it’s a bunch of pale-faced Glassies, you should probably tell us,” I say.

  “It’s okay. Let’s keep moving. We’ll angle our way to the edge of the forest from here.” Wilde conti
nues on, and we follow, but not until I catch Skye’s eye.

  “Did you see anything?” I ask her.

  “No,” she says. “If there was a Glassy to be seen, I’da seen him.”

  I don’t doubt that.

  The stretch of sand and durt ’tween us and the forest disappears a little with each step, until we’re in the shadows of the trees, stretching out like dark clouds underfoot. I walk with Skye on one side and Circ on t’other. Wilde walks alone, and I swear she keeps flicking her eyes to the trees, like at any moment a Glassy fire chariot might burst through the leaves.

  A bird chirps from a branch somewhere above us. Wilde stops, looks up.

  “It was just a bird,” I say. Why is Wilde being so paranoid?

  “I just thought…” Wilde says. As if in response to the first bird, another one chirps further down. Wilde’s eyes widen in horror.

  The leaves rustle and there’s a sharp whistle and a rush of air, and the pointer’s coming so fast that we’re all frozen…

  Thunk!

  Feather’s protruding, the pointer sticks in the ground at our feet. “Get down!” Wilde yells and there’s scrambling and scraping and the shriek of weapons being drawn, and I’ve got my bow out, pointer nocked, but there’s nothing to shoot at but trees, and we’re sitting ’zards out in the open desert like this.

  Nobody moves. Nobody breathes. The forest is silent.

  Then there’s a laugh and I think we all ’bout jump outta our skins, ’cept maybe Skye, who don’t seem to know the meaning of the word scared.

  “Don’t shoot,” a voice says. It’s as familiar as the durt stuck to my moccasins.

  Nobody moves. Nobody breathes.